When Alec Mills recorded the final out of his no-hitter on Sunday his former college coach at UT Martin Bubba Cates was filled with pride. Then Cates started thinking about some of the best pitchers in Cubs history and how neat it was for Mills to find a way into the history books. 

“I was looking for Ferguson Jenkins to see if he had thrown a no-hitter. He’s one of the all-time greats with the Cubs. I knew he hadn’t thrown one and I knew that’s a special place anyway that he was competing in,” Cates said. “You have to know that nerves are a part of that once you get into the 9th inning.”

When Cates saw that Mills was on the verge of a no-hitter, he spread word to various coaches that were there when Mills was walk-on at UT Martin.

“I had called one of the guys that was coaching with us at the time and I alerted him about the game. I said ‘Hey, Alec has a no-hitter in the 7th. You need to get to a TV.’ There was a lot of excitement down here,” Cates said. “I saw Twitter messages from a bunch of people that were teammates of his [Mills] and just saying nice things about that.”